I went to see Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical at the Vue Cinema on Friday 25th November 2022.
Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical, directed by Matthew Warchus, is the brand-new film adaptation of the Broadway and West End musical. It follows a young girl as she discovers her magnificent mind, while dealing with problems at home and school.
The film starts with the birth of Matilda and all of her future classmates, and follows her through her home and school life, as she slowly starts to discover that she is a genius. Matilda is faced with many problems, like her ignorant parents and the dreaded Headmistress, Agatha Trunchbull, but Matilda is hopeful she can get past these problems if she can just be “a little bit naughty.”
Alisha Weir plays Matilda in this adaptation, and she really allows the audience to connect with her and stay on her side throughout the film. Even when she is doing things that not everyone would necessarily agree with. As well as that Stephan Graham and Andrea Riseborough, who play Matilda’s parents have great characterisation as they make the audience feel Matilda’s pain whenever she is with them. My favourite performance from the film, however, was Emma Thompson as Agatha Trunchbull. She made the audience fear her and wish for her to get what she deserves.
The musicals numbers, written by Tim Minchin were incredible and well performed by the whole cast. One thing that I felt didn’t work as much though in this adaptation was the song “Quiet.” This was because the song “Loud” was removed from the score of this adaption, so there was no contrast there of the types of scenarios Matilda and her parents like to be in. Having seen the West end production in 2018, I think that the song worked better there, when the audience saw how different Matilda was to her parents.
Overall, I really enjoyed this film and would rate it 4 out of 5 stars as it is a great family film and one of the best stage to screen adaptations I have seen.
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